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“No, Nirei!” Sakura sticks closely to him as they linger behind Suo, urging, “You have to stay with me.”
“No, I really don’t think I can!” Nirei shrieks in his whisper. He glances at Suo. “I think Suo-san will actually kill me if I do…!”
Sakura frowns, catching a glimpse of Suo’s back—straight and refined in steady steps with hands locked behind him. It’s the same as ever but there’s a lot Sakura can’t tell from a turned back. Leaning on his animal instincts, he shivers. “No, he won’t,” Sakura flimsily assures him through grit teeth. He places his hand on his arm, tugging.
“Thank you, Nire-kun.” Suo’s voice pierces through the street, jolting both Sakura and Nirei into full alertness. Even with Suo facing away, the power of a few words hasn’t diminished. “I can take it from here,” he says.
Nirei stares at Suo’s back and then looks at Sakura. His expression is as worried as ever and there’s certainly remorse but Sakura knows it’s time for Nirei to go. He swallows a sigh and nods, letting Nirei leave. Sakura drags his feet in silent anticipation, knowing that he’s following Suo as a child prepared for reprimanding.
When he’s led into Suo’s house, he’s only offered a few words. They’re easy words but they feel heavy. The house that afternoon feels a little darker and, when he sits at a low table near the kitchen, it feels cold. Once again, Suo has his back to him and he isn’t speaking.
Sakura hates this.
He’d seen Suo’s anger before and felt the residuals of his wrath as he’d walked past, but he’d never been on the receiving end; the receiving end is a generous way to put it with this cold shoulder he’s getting. He wishes Suo was the type to yell—like Sakura does— or raise his fists—as Sakura would. Instead, he just tends to his tea-making in the kitchen and leaves Sakura frozen with jittery nerves at the table.
Sakura’s anticipatory grip on his pant legs finally lets up when Suo approaches. He places down two scalding cups of tea and takes his place across Sakura with a frankly disingenuous smile.
“Be careful,” he warns, resting a hand around his teacup. “It’s hot.”
Sakura looks down at the tea. It ripples steam through the air and, even by this distant proximity, he knows it’ll burn him. He keeps his hands on his thighs for the moment. He looks up and wonders what Suo is made of to manage a sip of that boiling concoction. Sakura scowls; in the face of impending danger, his nervousness easily becomes impatience.
“So, are you going to say something?” he bites out.
Suo’s hands are graceful and practiced—not wavering for a single moment—as he pulls his teacup from his lips to rest on his saucer. “Excuse me, Sakura-kun. I’m currently trying to keep my anger at bay.”
“Why? I can handle it, you know!” he shouts, digging into his thigh as he tries to rise in his seat.
It’s a lie. Sakura is terrified of Suo’s wrath. Sure, it’s unsettling seeing a placid man slip from his self-control. But, this isn’t just any placid man—this is Suo and Sakura doesn’t think he has the capacity to handle Suo being upset at him. That’s a kind of bravery that doesn’t swing fists or deliver final blows.
Suo closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to be upset at you, Sakura-kun.” His reveal is filled with resignation.
Sakura thinks it’s an odd way to start a confrontation, by backing down. But, he knows Suo’s gracious temperament hasn’t let him off the hook yet. “I—I know that…! I don’t know why you’re so upset, even!”
When he opens it, Suo’s eye blazes red—red like the magma on Mars. “You don’t know why I’m upset?”
Sakura swallows. He thinks of trying his tea—maybe it’s safer. “Hot…!” He promptly burns his tongue and nearly splashes the blistering drink on his hand. He flounders trying to regain his sense of balance, of rightness in his world. When he looks up, Suo’s hands are crossed on the table and his gaze is glued to Sakura.
Maybe Sakura gulps. He doesn’t have the words or the experience to know what to say to get Suo back on his side. He falls back on what Suo had always told him: just ask. So, Sakura exhales a flustered breath and wipes his mouth, asking, “What is it?”
“Would you like to know why I’m upset?”
Sakura frowns. Yes but no. He doesn’t know but he thinks he’ll learn something awful about himself in the process. If Suo enlightens him about a cardinal sin or a fundamental flaw of his… He bites his lip. He tries, “Nicely, please?”
Suo exhales. “I’ll try my best. I can’t make any promises, Sakura-kun,” he reminds him, “because I’m livid.”
“Livid…?” Sakura whispers.
“I’m livid because of your recklessness.”
“Recklessness…!”
“I’m livid that you kept secrets from me and went so far as to pull Nire-kun into keeping your secrets from me.”
Sakura growls. “I was protecting you because you made people angry!”
“Then, it’s my fault.”
“No!” He pulls at his hair. “No, it’s not! You know that’s not what I mean!”
“Tell me what you mean, Sakura-kun,” Suo implores. “Why did you pick a fight and exclude me from it?”
“I picked a fight?” Sakura rolls his eyes, countering, “It’s the way you’re condescending when you fight people that you don’t agree with! And you just happened to tick off the wrong guy this time! He was wild and violent and led a gang! Why wouldn’t I try to prevent you from getting involved in that?”
“As you said,” Suo says evenly, “it was an issue I brought about. I hadn’t asked for your help.”
“You would never ask me for that!”
He frowns—grimaces almost. “Did you know I’d be upset when you did it?”
Sakura’s shout sits in the back of his throat and dies with a squeak. Then, he steels himself as he crosses his arms. “No. That’s not fair.”
Suo blinks. “What’s not fair?”
“You don’t ask me for anything—good or bad. When I asked about it, you kept shrugging me off and saying not to worry. But, I was worried…!” Sakura admits, voice starting to crumble. “So I did something about it! So it’s not fair that you’re upset about this!”
Suo presses his lips into a thin line.
Sakura’s done it now. If he was keeping his anger at bay before, Sakura is a goner now. Turning it around on a person who’s upset is the behavior of a dead man. But, in the name of putting it all out on this mostly empty table, Sakura bit the bullet.
“Fair or not, I am upset,” Suo declares once again.
He frowns. Sakura pouts knowing that this conversation isn’t nearly finished. “Why?”
He drinks some tea, steadying his voice as he confesses, “I didn’t want you to worry. I also didn’t believe it was a risky situation that needed taking care of. I… I admit that I should have said something about it. In the same way that you want to keep me away from something risky, I wanted to keep you from that. Still, it was dangerous and unwise not to let me know.”
“No one got hurt!” He pats his arm, making a show of his sturdiness. “I’m fine! Nirei’s fine and so are all the other guys!”
“And, if you weren’t?”
Sakura shrugs. He thinks he can hear Suo’s teeth grinding.
“I like to think you possessed more forethought than that, Sakura-kun. If you didn’t, I’ll be more upset.”
Sakura keeps his mouth shut.
Suo sighs. “I understand why you did what you did. However, it doesn’t justify keeping it a secret from me and pulling others into your plan to keep that secret.”
“Like I would tell you I’m going to do something you’d say no to…!”
Suo frowns. It’s not a frown of discomfort and anger, nor is it one of displeasure or irritation. If the darkness could illuminate anything, Sakura thinks his expression had become cloudy with sadness. Now, the distance from one end of this small table to the other is intangible.
Just then, Sakura learns that there’s an expression Suo can wear that’s even uglier and more misery-inducing than wrath.
“Do you not trust me?” Suo asks.
Sakura can feel the breath being pulled from his lungs.
“I’m sorry,” he amends quickly. Suo shakes his head and it’s like a board is wiped clean of dirt but Sakura knows it’s not. “I don’t mean to ask rhetorical questions. What I mean is it feels like you don’t trust me.”
“I do!” Sakura shouts. “I do, I really do! I just—!” He hangs his head, staring at his tea. Testing it, he puts his finger in it and finds that it's gone terribly cold. It almost doesn’t seem palatable when he licks his finger.
“Sakura-kun?”
He watches the ripples he’s made on the surface of the tea. He swallows, admitting, “I really don’t know. I couldn’t just let them hurt you! You were always going to say that it wasn’t a problem but it always was to me! They had it out for you, you know? Because they’re prideful, vengeful bastards, they said all these things about you. I—“ Sakura swallows. “I couldn’t stomach that so I kept it from you. I told everyone else to keep it from you.”
“If you had told me, we would have worked it out together,” Suo reassures him.
Sakura just shakes his head. “You would have talked me down,” he whispers. “I trust your judgment more than mine, so I would have stopped. But Nirei and some others thought it was bad. They said things that were just too risky not to do something. I mean,” he suddenly realizes, “I prefer being safe and not sorry for your sake.”
Suo hums. “I understand.”
“You do?”
“I think the same way that you do, Sakura-kun. It’s terrifying seeing you bleed and accumulate bruises. I know it’s what you’ve chosen for yourself and that you deem it as necessary but I’m not interested in seeing my friends hurt.”
Sakura nods stiffly.
“If you had told me, maybe things would have gone differently.”
He tilts his head as a silent question.
Suo smiles. It’s completely inappropriate given everything, so it only confuses Sakura more. So, Suo laughs once. “Sakura-kun, I know you have your way of doing things. If you’d told me your intentions like you did just now, I might have agreed with you. At the very least, I wouldn’t have let you do it alone.”
“I—I didn’t do it alone,” he corrects.
He smiles. “I wouldn’t have let you do it without me.”
Sakura feels warm and he knows it’s not the residuals of the tea he failed to drink.
“If you’re going to pick a fight, Sakura-kun, I hope to be there watching your back.”
He swallows. “I—I—Thanks…” he finally settles on. Sakura scratches his head, mumbling, “I’ll try to tell you more.”
Suo smiles. “I appreciate that. In return, I’ll be more upfront. Ah, and perhaps, I’ll be less condescending when picking fights?”
He groans lightly. “I didn’t—“
He laughs.
Sakura thinks Suo will make a joke that is barely at Sakura’s expense. That’s the natural order of things. He wouldn’t mind that because it means they’ve put aside this momentary conflict.
Instead, Suo’s hand reaches out across the table, patting Sakura’s head as he smiles.
Sakura freezes. He can feel strands of his hair rubbed between his fingers.
“Your hair’s getting long, isn’t it?” Suo murmurs.
He looks up to see Suo looking like… Well, Sakura doesn’t really know. Maybe, it’s like Suo’s stargazing or watching fireworks explode in the sky. Only, he isn’t; he’s just looking at Sakura. Promptly, he blushes and Suo chuckles.
Sakura lacks effort when he swats Suo’s hand yet it falls away without difficulty. Sakura tries to hide in his tea, then exclaims, “It’s so bitter…”
Suo smiles. “Would you like another drink?”
Sakura thinks about his acrid tea that’s far past being cold. He pulls it up to his mouth with a crease in his brow. “No, it’s fine…”
“I apologize for not bringing out tea snacks,” Suo adds. “I was distracted.”
He shakes his head.
“Next time, I’ll be sure to,” he promises.
Sakura lets the tepid tea wash over his tongue and lets the bitterness funnel down his throat. He looks at the fine China before him that probably costs more than everything he’s wearing. He sees Suo, patient as ever with an empty tea cup and an oh-so familiar smile. Sakura nods. “Alright.”